The present invention generally relates to a system and a method for managing and/or rendering internet multimedia content in a network. More specifically, the present invention relates to a system and a method that utilize an application to render the internet multimedia content and locally stored multimedia content on one or more rendering devices in the network. The application may provide web browser functions, such as, for example, requesting, receiving, processing, decoding and/or rendering the internet multimedia content.
It is well known to use the internet to browse, find, retrieve and consume internet content using a web browser. Typically, the internet content may be a combination of web page formatting, such as, for example, HTML, xHTML; text; graphics; active content and/or applications, such as, for example, Flash (trademark of Adobe System, Inc.) and/or JavaScript (trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.); and/or multimedia content. The multimedia content may be audio content, video content, image content and/or the like. The audio content may be audio files, audio podcasts, audio streams, internet radio channels, ringtones, midi files and/or the like. The video content may be video files, video podcasts, video streams, video channels and/or the like. The image content may be digital photographs, bitmap images, vector graphics images and/or the like.
Typically, the web browser may be an application provided by a computing device, such as, for example, a desktop computer, a laptop computer and/or a mobile device, such as a PDA and/or a mobile telephone. The web browser may access content sources using the internet as generally illustrated in FIG. 1. The Internet content may be retrieved from the content sources using delivery protocols, such as, for example, Hypertext Transfer-Protocol (“HTTP”) and/or Real Time Streaming Protocol (“RTSP”). The web browser may accept input from the user to search for and/or select content of interest to the user. The web browser may retrieve the content of interest and may present the content of interest to the user for consumption. Presentation of the content of interest may require one or more associated helper applications, such as, for example, a multimedia player and/or a scripting engine.
Typically, the user may use the web browser to find and/or access a web page of the internet content. The web page of the internet content may be found using a search engine; by selecting a “bookmark” previously created by the user; by typing a content location identifier, such as, for example, a Uniform Resource Locator (“URL”); and/or by using other means. The web page of the internet content may have and/or may provide multimedia content which may be decoded and/or may be rendered for the user. The video content may be displayed in an embedded video player which may render the video content in the web page with associated web page content and/or the formatting. Alternatively, the video content may be displayed in a separate video player which may appear on a separate web page or in a separate window dedicated to the video player. Similarly, the image content may be displayed as embedded in the web page or may be shown in a separate image viewer window. The audio content may be played by speakers and/or sent to an “audio out” port on the computing device.
FIG. 2 shows a typical prior art system in which the user interacts with the web browser using a web browser user interface (“UI”) to find, retrieve and/or consume the internet content. The web browser UI may accept input from the user to navigate web pages and to discover and retrieve the internet content. The web browser UI may display and/or may render the internet content for the user. The web browser may use one or more multimedia players to process and render the multimedia content. The multimedia player may access the multimedia content using the web browser, as shown in FIG. 2, or the multimedia player may access the multimedia content using the internet without the multimedia content passing through the web browser.
Thus, the web browser may provide an interactive experience in which the user may find, retrieve and/or consume internet content, such as multimedia content. The web browser is currently the only means by which a user may access the complete collection of multimedia content available on the internet. However, the web browser is limited to rendering the internet content on the computing device which hosts the web browser.
The emergence of multimedia home networking technologies allows users to enjoy digital multimedia content on a variety of networked rendering devices in the home. The Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) Audio and Video (AV) standard defines a popular protocol by which media servers and media rendering devices may be connected, controlled and used to process and play multimedia content. The Digital Living Network Alliance (DLNA) specification provides additional details and conformance points to ensure UPnP AV-based home networking products correctly communicate with each other. Products based on the UPnP AV standard and/or the DLNA specification allow the user to access, control and render digital multimedia content files, such as, for example, audio files, video files, digital photographs and the like, within a multimedia-enabled home network.
Typically, the digital multimedia content files reside on one or more media servers in the home network. The digital multimedia content files may have been downloaded from the internet. For example, the user may have accessed an internet content store using the web browser to purchase and/or download the digital multimedia content files to one of the media servers in the home network. Alternatively, the digital multimedia content files may have been acquired without using the internet. For example, the user may have copied audio files from a CD or transferred video files from a camcorder and stored resulting audio and/or video files on one of the media servers in the home network. After the digital multimedia content files are stored on one of the media servers in the home network, user input may direct transmittal of the digital multimedia content files to one or more of the media rendering devices in the home network.
The home network may have various media rendering devices, such as, for example, networked stereos, televisions, personal computers, digital photo frames and other devices which have multimedia content rendering capabilities. The home network may also have control points which may be used to control the servers and the rendering devices so that the user may discover and/or may select from the digital multimedia content files and/or may control a rendering experience.
Thus, existing multimedia home networking technologies may enable selection, delivery and/or rendering of the digital multimedia content files which reside on the media servers in the home network. However, the digital multimedia content files must be downloaded and/or purchased by the user and must be placed on one of the media servers to be accessible to the rendering devices in the home network. Much of the multimedia content available on the internet was created for delivery to and/or display in a web browser and is typically not available in a downloadable form. Thus, the existing multimedia home networking technologies do not allow the user to access the complete collection of multimedia content available on the internet which has been created for delivery to and display within a web browser.
The user may have a media management and control application which enables the user to find, obtain, organize and play multimedia content. Typically, the media management and control application is provided by a personal computer or a laptop computer. For example, Twonky Media Manager (trademark of PacketVideo Corp.), SimpleCenter (trademark of Universal Electronics, Inc.) and iTunes (trademark of Apple Computer, Inc.) are media management and control applications provided by mobile devices. However, limited versions of a media management and control application may be provided by mobile devices, such as PDAs or mobile telephones.
The media management and control application may access an online content store to enable the user of the application to find, purchase and/or download multimedia content from the online content store. Thus, the application may allow the user to build a collection of multimedia content which may be played within the application, may be transferred to a mobile device and/or may be sent to one or more of the rendering devices in the home network. The application may act as a media server to transfer the multimedia content to the media rendering devices in the home network at the request of the user.
The media management and control application may have access to specific digital multimedia content files and/or multimedia content streams available from the internet. For example, the application may have the ability to relay internet radio channels. The user may select one of the internet radio channels. Then, the application may stream the selected internet radio channel from the internet to one or more of the rendering devices in the home network without storing the multimedia content on the media servers in the home network. The media management and control application may act as a media server and may reformat the content for compatibility with the target rendering device.
Therefore, media management and control applications may provide functions to obtain, purchase and/or organize multimedia content. The applications may also provide access to a limited subset of the multimedia content available on the internet. However, the applications do not have web browser functionality, and do not provide access to the complete collection of multimedia content available on the internet which has been created for delivery to and/or display within web browsers. Existing media management and control applications do not enable rendering of the complete collection of multimedia content available on the internet by the rendering devices in a home network.
An emerging class of consumer electronics device products known as bridge devices connect to the home network and to the rendering devices, in the home to allow direct display of streamed internet multimedia content on one or more of the rendering devices. Typically, bridge devices do not access the rendering device using the home network. Instead, bridge devices have a wired audio and/or video connection which attaches directly to the rendering device. Thus, a bridge device is coupled directly to a single rendering device, and the rendering device does not need to be capable of connecting to the home network.
The bridge devices do not provide web browser functionality and, therefore, are not capable of providing access to the complete collection of multimedia content available on the internet. The bridge devices are designed to accommodate a specific subset of internet multimedia content, often from one or a few content sites. Restriction of the use of the bridge device to a few content sites enables the bridge device to be inexpensive and to have a relatively simple user interface. An example of a bridge device is a “Netflix Ready” device (trademark of Netflix, Inc.), such as the “Roku Digital Video Player” that allows the user to access Netflix “instant watch” videos from the internet and display them on a television. The “Netflix Ready” device must have an internet connection, and the user must have a valid Netflix subscription. However, the “Netflix Ready” device cannot browse internet multimedia content other than the Netflix “instant watch” videos. The “Netflix Ready” device also must be connected to the television using wired audio and video cables, and the “Netflix Ready” device cannot connect wirelessly to the television and cannot connect to a DLNA television using the home network.
Another example of bridge devices are some cable set-top boxes and digital video recorders (DVRs) that provide access to “YouTube” internet content (trademark of Google Inc.). For example, TiVo's HD DVR is an example of a bridge device which supports “YouTube” internet content. These bridge devices allow a subset of YouTube's internet video content to be viewed directly on a television using wired audio and video cables. The set-top box or DVR must have an internet connection, and a monthly subscription fee may be required. However, these bridge devices cannot browse general internet multimedia content and, therefore, cannot provide access to the complete collection of multimedia content available on the internet.
Existing web browsers are limited to rendering the internet multimedia content on the computing device which hosts the web browser. Existing multimedia home networking technologies and bridge devices enable rendering of multimedia content on rendering devices in the home network but do not allow the user to access the complete collection of multimedia content available on the internet. Therefore, existing multimedia technology does not enable consumption of the complete collection of multimedia content available on the internet on rendering devices in the home network.
The present invention also generally relates to a system and method for using an application on a mobile device to transfer internet media content to a rendering device in a home network. More specifically, the application may use an HTML rendering engine to display a web page to a user of the mobile device, and the web page may have controls for accessing the internet media content. The application may initiate transfer of the internet media content to the rendering device in the home network and/or may queue the internet media content for later playback using the rendering device.
The internet has a large and still growing number of content sites which offer access to digital media content, such as digital photographs, digital music files and/or streams, digital video files and/or streams, and/or the like. Such internet media content is typically accessible through web pages provided by the content site or by a third party site, such as a search engine provider or a content indexing service. Therefore, end users typically access internet media content using a web browser to discover, select and/or play back the internet media content. The internet media content is typically played using media playback capabilities of the web browser. Alternatively, the internet media content may be played by a companion media player which may be a separate application or which may be added to the web browser in the form of a “browser plug-in.”
For example, a user may access Flickr (trademark of Yahoo! Inc., domain at www.flickr.com) in a web browser to search for and view photographs uploaded by users of the Flickr photo sharing site. As another example, a user may visit YouTube (trademark of Google Inc., domain at www.youtube.com) to search for and view video content uploaded by users of the YouTube video sharing service. As another example, a user may pull up the Google search engine (trademark of Google Inc., domain at www.google.com) to perform a free-form search, and, as a result, the user may obtain a page of search results which includes and provides access to internet media content from various content sites. Accordingly, a user has many avenues to explore content sites and/or to discover digital media content available on the internet.
Web browsers were originally created for full-function personal computer devices, such as desktop and laptop PC's. However, as a result of the constant evolution of computing technology, a wide array of consumer electronics devices now have web browsers. For example, web browsers are currently present in mobile phones, smartphones, PDA's, tablet computing devices, televisions and gaming devices. Web browsers in such electronic devices often have browsing capabilities similar to the browsing capabilities of a PC browser. For example, the web browser in a modern smartphone may have full HTML rendering capabilities; may be capable of running scripting languages, such as JavaScript (trademark of Oracle America, Inc.) and Flash (trademark of Adobe Systems Inc.); may be capable of playing media content discovered through web pages; and/or similar web browsing capabilities.
However, web browsers on such electronic devices still lack the extensibility and flexibility of a typical PC browser. For example, web browsers for mobile phones, smartphones and PDA's typically do not have a “plug-in” architecture and, therefore, do not support the ability to accept external plug-ins or toolbars for adding new functionality to the web browser. There are practical reasons for this limitation. For example, such extensibility may present security concerns for the mobile device web browser. As another example, mobile devices often have limited screen size and user input facilities for which display of a toolbar or implementation of additional user interface functions for interaction with a plug-in may be impractical.
The discovery of and access to digital media content is, of course, not limited to web browsers. Multimedia home networking technologies, such as UPnP AV (trademark of UPnP Forum Non-Profit Corp.) and DLNA (trademark of Digital Living Network Alliance Corp.), allow users to consume digital media content through a growing array of consumer electronics devices. For example, a user may have a library of digital music files on a media server device in a home network, and the user may access and play back the digital music files using a DLNA-compliant networked stereo device. In a similar fashion, the user may have digital video files stored in the home network, and the user may access and play back the digital video files using a DLNA-compliant television attached to the home network. A DLNA-compliant rendering device may have an internal control point which enables the device to present a user interface by which the user may browse media servers and sources to discover, select, retrieve, and/or play back the media content available through the home network. Alternatively or additionally, a DLNA-compliant rendering device may support external control so that an external control point device and/or an external control point application may be used to send media content to the rendering device. Moreover, an external control point device and/or an external control point application may instruct the rendering device to retrieve media from a media server and/or may control the media playback on the rendering device.
A networked media controller product may reside in a home network and may provide control point functionality, media playback control, queued playback, and/or other media control functions. The networked media controller may enable other electronic devices, such as mobile devices, to access such media control functions through the home network using one or more control interfaces provided by the networked media controller. Embodiments of such a networked media controller product are disclosed in U.S. Pub. No. 2010/0095332, herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Many non-PC computing devices now support downloadable applications. For example, the “App Store” (trademark of Apple Inc.) provides downloadable applications for Apple devices such as the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch (all trademarks of Apple Inc.). As another example, the Android Marketplace provides downloadable applications for use on Android OS devices, such as Android smartphones and tablets (trademark of Google Inc.). As a third example, the ability to download and execute applications is built into many devices, such as televisions, media player devices, Blu-ray players (trademark of Blu-ray Disc Association) and gaming consoles.
Operating systems, such as iOS (trademark of Apple Inc.) and the Android OS, provide a rich application development environment. As a result, the downloadable applications may access various OS-provided functions and services related to graphics display, user input, network access, rendering of web content, scripting, media playback, and/or the like. For example, the Android operating system has a WebView class which is capable of rendering web pages, executing JavaScript (trademark of Oracle America, Inc.) code, processing user interaction, and the like. However, current web browsers, such as the web browsers provided by iOS and the Android OS, do not have a plug-in architecture to enable the mobile device to use a plug-in product to transfer internet media content to a rendering device in a home network.